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Divorce can be a difficult time for your children. They may feel anxious, angry or sad. They may feel torn between their parents. They may feel responsible. They may feel that
it is in their power to fix things. Or they
may feel a total loss of control over maintaining what has been familiar and
safe.

The good news
is that children are resilient. But a
very important ingredient for them to recover is for you to provide them with
the time and space to process their emotions around the divorce. The problem is
that children are often not “good” at sharing how they feel. And some parents struggle with that same dynamic!
Add to that the guilt, sadness, or anger
you may be feeling around the divorce, and the conversation may feel
challenging indeed.

So the question is: How can help your child become
aware of her emotions? And how can you help her be comfortable articulating those
feelings to you? How do you develop the
capacity to be that one place where your child can let her feelings boil over
into the sympathetic embrace of someone who loves her?

During a divorce, one of your most important jobs is
to create a safe container into which your child can pour out all of her
unexpressed anger, sadness, and frustration. Forging that dynamic with your
child is infinitely more helpful than finding her a therapist. Therapy is beneficial when clients experience
a safe space to figure out what they are feeling (as opposed to just “thinking”),
acknowledge the emotions out loud, and feel them deeply. You, the parent, have the capacity to be the
best therapist in the world because you can facilitate such an interaction every
day between your child and the person she wants to talk to the most –
yourself!

So how exactly do you become your child’s “emotional
coach”? This may seem like a daunting
project because sometimes it can be difficult to pull thoughts and feelings out
of our children:

The good news is that emotional coaching is fairly
simple and can be boiled down to two simple steps. First,
whenever your child talks about something with any energy (e.g., anger,
sadness, frustration), be curious. Second, validate their emotions by reflecting back to them what you have
heard them say.

The heart of being a good
listener is to embrace the notion of being curious. Like a therapist, try not
to have a specific agenda. Ask lots of
open-ended question – namely, “how, what, and why” questions that elicit
answers longer than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Keep your child talking and give her your full
attention.

Simple,
right? The rub is that is often
difficult for parents to remain in an empathic, neutral space when the child is
exhibiting negative emotions. You are likely to be triggered. You may want to figure out how to make your
child’s distress to go away (e.g., “I hate my life!”). Or you may get defensive
because your child is complaining about something you did (e.g., “You made
Dad/Mom go away!”). Or you may worry
that her attitude is detrimental to her well-being (e.g., “I am so embarrassed
that my parents are divorced!”).

It can be difficult to hear your
child’s pain, anger, or criticism. Stay relaxed. Keep breathing. Listen for
vulnerable emotions behind anger and frustration. Resist the impulse to go into
problem-solving mode or to defend your actions or convince your child out of
her feelings. Look for grains of truth in what is
being said and try to understand
the issue from your child’s point of view.

Why is listening so important?

First, your child will feel really seen and
understood when you ask them questions about events that are important to
them. This is a profound reminder to
them that they exist and that you care.

Second, think of the dynamic as
exercising your child’s emotional muscles.
By asking a lot of curious, open-ended questions, you are exploring with
your child her inner world. You are
training her to discover and work through her emotions.

Question: “What happened?”

Child’s Internal Process: [“Easy. I
remember that!”]

Question: “Why did that bother you?”

Child’s Internal Process: [“Hmm…let me explore that feeling…”]

Question: “What would have made you feel better?”

Child’s Internal Process: [“OK, I’m
thinking about what I need…”]

This is why I call it emotional
coaching. Your child needs to acquire the skill for her healthy
development. And your role is essential
because emotional intelligence it is not taught at school. We can end up with high school, college, and
even graduate degrees without ever learning emotional skills.

Lastly, when you “get it,” reflect back
to your child what they just told you (from their point of view). Show them that you understand them. This will give your child the sense that she
is fundamentally seen and understood by the most important person in her life –
you!

Child: “I wish you two would get back
together!”

Parent: “Is our separation hard on you?”

Child: “Yes!”

Parent: “In what way is it hard?”

Child:
“I don’t like having two houses. I don’t want to go back and forth! I want
to see you both every night!”

Parent: “This divorce has made your
life harder and means you don’t get to have everyone around at once.”

Child: “Yes!”

And what about reacting to what you
have heard? Sometimes your child needs your
advice. Sometimes your child has the
wrong idea about something important. And
sometimes you will need to problem solve.

My best advice is to separate your need
to respond to the content of your child’s words from the opportunity to elicit
the emotional import. Don’t mix the
two. Save your response for a later day. Let your child have the experience of being
heard (if only for 15 minutes). A parent’s verbal assurances (“You know you can
tell me anything.”) will not be as convincing as a child’s experience of good
listening. Let your child know that you
are always there to listen and to understand.
Let your child experience a safe place for them to pour out their
emotions.

Emotional coaching necessitates time and
patience. So, when your child talks
about anything with any emotional energy behind it, find the time, space and
the right attitude. A remember the
mantra – be curious, be curious, be curious.

Couples often have difficulty mediating their
divorce effectively. At this juncture, many of your
expectations regarding trust, intimacy, and emotional support have been
dashed. You may be mourning the demise
of the relationship and anxious about the future. Sometimes, the effects of an affair are still
rocking the relationship. And through
all of this emotional turmoil, your are expected to keep your children’s best
interests in mind, make sound financial decisions, and bridge the gap between
you and your soon-to-be ex-partner’s values and sense of what is right, wrong,
and fair.

If you have selected the mediation process, you probably
have some reason for wanting to avoid the litigation process. You either want to split amicably, continue
co-parenting smoothly, or want to avoid the financial and emotional cost of
going to court. And, yet, you don’t want
to make a deal that you are going to regret and litigate at a later date, or
that is going to be the cause of resentment and recrimination as you continue
to co-parent.

So, how can you be true to the intensity of your emotions
but, at the same time, not perpetuate the discord of your marriage during the
mediation process? How do you minimize the discomfort of
representing yourself and maximize the likelihood of being satisfied with the
final deal? In short, how do you mediate
effectively?

Preparation – Negotiate your marital settlement agreement
from a fully informed perspective. To prepare
adequately, you should gather and share all relevant financial information
before you start to negotiate. To the
extent necessary, ask for documentation to verify all amounts. Providing mutual transparency into all the
existing assets and debts is a court requirement and necessary for an
atmosphere of trust in the mediation process.

Be clear on the difference between
what you need, what is available, and what is fair. “What you need” might
necessitate examining daily expenses and making a future budget. Financial planners can be helpful in this
exercise. “What is available” can be verified as you gather all your financial
information. Make sure there is a
correlation between what you are demanding and what is available to split. (You used to have access to all of the
community assets. Now you don’t. This is one of the painful realities of
divorce.) “What is fair” is trickier, as
the question contains both a subjective and an objective component. Sometimes parties come to me who are aligned
on the issue of ongoing support. But I
rarely meet a payor /recipient of spousal/child support who is happy with the
amount he/she will be paying/receiving.
And how the court would adjudicate the matter is a normative frame of
reference that can’t be avoided when discussing support (divorced friends,
concerned family members, and consulting attorneys are sure to bring this up),
so make sure that you are informed via research or competent legal advice about
how California law deals with the support issue.

Adjust Your Expectations
– Remember that it is unlikely
that you will be “happy” with the eventual financial arrangement. While the family income and assets are going
to remain as they were during the marriage, your joint expenses are going to
increase now that you will be running two households. You should be aiming for a settlement that
balances what you need, what is available, and what is fair. And, hopefully, you can create together a
process that is respectful, creative, and productive. But, at the very least, you are trying to get
through a very painful period in your life and minimize your collateral and
financial damage. If you do this, that
is a huge achievement.

Identify Interests – Think about your interests and make proposals
that are commensurate with them. And
provide those interests to your ex when making a proposal (particularly for any
stance that does not reflect a joint parenting schedule or 50/50 split of the
assets), so that he/she understands your reasoning. And think about your ex’s interests. For instance, is there a quid pro quo that
you can offer your ex (e.g., exchanging money for custodial time)? Keep in mind the values of the other party
(e.g., being the primary caretaker or being seen as an equal parent). What are they most concerned about? What can you offer them that will induce them
to accept your proposal? What are
creative ways for you to get what you need, and still give the other side what
he/she wants?

Be Ready to Bargain! – Come prepared to sessions with concrete
proposals on which you are willing compromise. Prioritize them, so that you focus on the most
important interests in the negotiation and can let go of others. Assume that you will not get everything you
want. The culture of negotiation
necessitates give and take. There is an
expectation that you will move from your first offer. A refusal to do so can be interpreted as a
sign that you are being unreasonable. If
you pre-determine what is “fair” and present that as the only and final offer
from which you are unwilling to budge, you risk alienating your negotiation
partner and getting stuck in an impasse.

Create a Bargaining Range – Set
high, but realistic, goals about what you hope to get out of the
negotiation. It is good to have
something to strive for. Also develop a
bottom line – meaning, the point at which you would rather have a judge rule on
your divorce. But remember that it is
irrational to fail to agree to something in mediation that the court would
order anyway. And keep in mind that it
will cost the community coffers, if represented by attorneys, between $50,000
and $100,000 to get that ruling.

Avoid Emotional Entanglement
– Don’t expect your soon-to-be-ex suddenly to validate your emotional
point of view or to show up in the mediation in a way that is very different
than how he/she behaved during the marriage. You will just be setting yourself
up for disappointment. I always tell the
couples I work with: You cannot solve
during the divorce problems that you could not resolve during the
marriage. So calibrate your expectations
and keep your eye on the prize.

Engage in a Different Conversation – Present yourself verbally in a
way which is both authentic and constructive.
As this is a painful juncture in your life and a very difficult process,
it is inevitable that emotions will rise to the surface. At the same time, mediation is an opportunity
to have a different conversation with your ex than the one you have been having
up until now. I find that keeping in
mind four basic communication steps can help you achieve this goal. They are:

1) Make a Neutral Observation

2) Describe Your Feeling

3) Articulate Your Needs

4) Make a Specific Proposal

Make
a Neutral Observation – Describe in neutral terms what you heard your
ex proposing. Or describe neutrally what
is happening in the room. For instance,
rather than stating accusingly “Your
support offer is appalling!” say “You are offering me $2,000 a month.” Rather than assuming “You think the children
don’t need a father!” say “You are proposing that I spend every other weekend
with the children.”

Describing your negotiating
partner’s frustrating behavior in a relatively non-judgmental fashion creates
the foundation for him/her to hear your concerns non-defensively. This also increases the chances that, rather
than just eliciting an angry or defensive response, he/she will continue in the
negotiation with the desire to reach an agreement. Think of this as simple cause and effect
embedded in our DNA – unbridled anger or caustic criticism creates a “fight or
flight” response. The gentler the
initial forray, the more gentle the reaction.

Describe
Your Feelings – Take a moment to figure out and then express
your vulnerable (non-angry) emotions. What
is the fundamental need not being met by your partner’s proposal and how do you
feel about that? For instance, beneath
the anger in the examples above might be feelings of sadness (e.g. grieving
over missed time with children), powerlessness (e.g. not being able to support
yourself financially in the future), or loss of identity (e.g. losing one’s
role as the children’s primary care taker).

To clarify the underlying emotions
beneath the anger, try saying out loud the narrative running in your head about
your situation. Our emotions are often
dictated by our interpretations of others’ actions, so it can be helpful to figure
out that story. For instance: “You are denying
me access to my children. You must not
value my contributions as a co-parent. I
feel really sad about that!” or “When you don’t want to split the assets with
me evenly, I think it must be because you don’t value my contributions to the
marriage. Wow, I feel really disrespected.” Not only does sharing your story help you to
gain emotional clarity, but it also allows your partner to correct an
interpretation of his/ her behavior that wasn’t commensurate with his/her
intentions (e.g. “I value your role as a caretaker, but I can’t resign myself
to seeing the children less than I am see them now.”)

Delving down to the vulnerable
emotions can be difficult, particularly when the pain of divorce is still acute
and the trust in your ex-partner so low.
Nevertheless, I tell clients with whom I mediate that they need to hone
their internal dialogue before they can have an effective external
communication. This means digging deep
beneath your anger to understand why your ex-partner’s positions or proposals
are triggering you so negatively. The
vulnerable feeling at the center of your maelstrom is the place where you both
are most likely to connect.

Articulate
Your Needs – State
your interests or what you generally need in the settlement agreement. This helps contextualize your proposal. For instance, “It is important to me that I
have quality time each week with the children.”
or “I need to know that I will be secure financially.”

Articulating your needs begins to
shift the focus from your concrete proposal to your underlying concerns. Your ex-partner
may hear your negotiation stance, but may not understand why you feel so
strongly about your position. Surfacing
your interest, which is broader than stating your position, expands the
possibility of finding common ground and provides a compass towards creative
resolution.

Make
a Concrete Proposal – Finally,
always conclude your remarks with a concrete proposal. State with specificity what is it that your ex-partner
can do to alleviate your intense emotions or satisfy your interests. For instance, you might say “Let’s sit down
now with our calendars and plan how we will divide up the holidays and vacation
time with the children.” Or “Please
provide me with print outs of all our financial assets.” Or “I propose that spousal support decrease
over time. Let’s discuss what would be
suitable reasons for such an adjustment.”

Making a specific proposal is a
very critical step in the negotiation process. All too often, parties come to mediation and
articulate very strong emotions without ever articulating a counteroffer. If all that is being stated is your dissatisfaction,
the negotiation process descends back into old relationship dynamics. And remember the adage: You cannot solve in divorce problems that you
could not resolve during the marriage. The
way to avoid mediation becoming a very bad couples counseling session and getting
inextricably mired in emotional content is to keep bouncing back and forth
successive proposals and counterproposals until you reach resolution or
compromise.

In addition to the specifics of personality, temperament, and
family history, your children’s response to divorce will vary according to
their age. Below is a brief and broad
outline of typical responses based on different developmental stages.

Preschoolers –
Because 2-5 year olds’ worlds revolves around themselves, they are prone to
believe that the divorce is related to their behavior. This could derive from thoughts like “I was
bad” to more primitive notions of causality such as “If I hadn’t spilt my
spaghetti last night, Mom and Dad would not have fought, and they wouldn’t be
divorcing.” It is important to be
attuned to this thought process and relieve your children of the idea that the
divorce is their fault and that they have the power to fix it.

Preschoolers tend to focus on what is immediately visible to
them, and their fears will correspond accordingly. These can run the gamut of
the tragic (“Will I ever see my mommy again?”) to the mundane (“Will I still be
having macaroni and cheese on Friday nights?”).
Having an abundance of these fears can lead to regressive behaviors
(such as clinginess, problems in toilet training, and seeking out security
objects) or even aggressive behavior.
And because they are rooted in the present, expressions of grief rarely
last a long time and are likely to be expressed during play or in artwork.

Young Elementary
School Children – If not addressed directly, 6-8 year oldsmay see themselves as holding the power
to reunite their parents. This can lead
to futile attempts to be good so as to “heal” the family or, the opposite, an
unconscious effort to reunite mom and dad by forcing them to deal with the
child’s negative, acting out behavior.

It is normal for this age group to express more grief than
preschoolers and engage in more crying or sobbing, so it is helpful to elicit
their emotions and validate their sadness.
See < http://robertdterris.wordpress.com/2010/11/> That being said, some children at this age
(particularly girls) are prone to taking responsibility for their parents’
emotions. Don’t be complicit in your
children’s parentification (in which they repress their emotions in favor of
taking care of yours).

Lastly, be prepared for your children to idealize the
missing parent and express anger towards the physically present custodial
parent. This, while painful to you, is a
commonplace phenomenon and is a symptom of the separation rather than a
reflection of their attachment to the custodial parent. Don’t let this dynamic slip into a loyalty
conflict where you try to get your children to understand your perspective and side
with you against your ex-spouse. This is
deeply harmful to their wellbeing. Being
cajoled into taking sides can develop into an uncomfortable disconnection (or
even alignment) with the “bad” parent. And, either way, they will feel forced to
betray one parent or the other. Reassure
them that it is OK to have angry feelings and to have a close relationship with
both parents.

Older Elementary
School Children and Tweens – 9-12 years olds can have a tendency to repress
their feelings and deny grief, anger or sadness around missing one or the other
parent. As a result, you may notice that
your child is experiencing more negative, physical symptoms -- a somatic manifestation of their intense
emotions. Try to coax out their feelings by asking questions and listening without reassuring them too quickly or persuading them to feel differently.

This age group’s comparative intellectual sophistication can
sometimes lead to the child having a more “objective” analysis regarding the
causes for the divorce and, therefore, more anger at the parents for breaking
up the family and creating all the challenges that divorce entails. It is helpful to present a Divorce Story [see
below] that your child can fall back on that comfortably frames the reasons for
divorce, offers hope that the logistics surrounding the child’s life will
remain stable, and assures the child that he/she can maintain a relationship
with both parents.

Lastly, these children are increasingly self-conscious of
what others think, and may carry shame around the marital breakup. Spend time hearing and understanding their
perspective. Help them by validating
their emotions and normalizing their experience through peer support or group
therapy.

Adolescents –
During adolescence, children are very peer oriented. Their sense of belonging, identity, intimacy,
and security are all mediated through the prism of their social group. And, at the same time, adolescents are trying
very hard to individuate and form a sense of self that is separate from their
parents. Consequently, don’t be
surprised if your teenager seeks out his/her peers during this sensitive time. While it is always important to be emotionally
available for your children, and to facilitate authentic expression of their
feelings, don’t worry if your teenager is choosing to find support within the
comfort of his/her social group. Red
flags that you should be alert to are antisocial or lonely behavior,
delinquency, academic failure, substance abuse, and the loss of interest in
formerly pleasurable activities.

Also, teenagers need clear and consistent structure and
discipline. Divorced parents should
provide a unified front and the clear message to their teen that they will
continue to act as a cohesive parental unit.
If divorced parents become preoccupied with their own conflict, teens
will take advantage of the lack of supervision and/or play one parent against
the other to exercise their will in an unhealthy way.

On the Holmes and Rahe stress scale, which predicts the
probability of illness based on recent life events, only the death of a spouse is
considered more stressful and more likely to lead to physical illness than is divorce.
For many reasons—from the psychological and emotional to the practical and
financial—divorce is nearly always extremely challenging for everyone involved.
And for the non-wage earning spouse, finding
personal and financial balance can be particularly challenging.

The Chinese character for ‘crisis’ is comprised of the
symbols for both ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’ In other words, divorce constitutes both great
challenges and also great opportunities – ones that can see you ending up
stronger, happier, and better prepared for the future than you might have ever
imagined. However, to convert these
challenges into opportunities, and to make success much more likely, it is
imperative in most cases that you don’t
try to go it alone; instead, seek appropriate assistance and support wherever
and whenever you need it.

For example, with the right kind of emotional support, be it
from friends and family or mental health professionals, you can much more
easily and gracefully move through the trauma you have experienced and
establish a new identity and an emotionally satisfying social life. Similarly,
if you find the right kind of financial support—for example, a financial
advisor experienced in and dedicated to understanding, assisting, and educating
recently divorced women—you can reestablish yourself in a pragmatically
grounded life trajectory that will attend to the immediate needs before you
(and your children, if any) and take you into retirement.

Some Crucial Divorce-Related
Financial Facts

First, it’s important to realize that divorce almost always
results in a lower standard of living for the family. From paying for food and cable to paying for living
quarters and vacations, where there used to be one outlay there will now be
two. With the many efficiencies of
living together as a family no longer present, and with the many costs of
getting to a divorce agreement and finalizing the paperwork a substantial
financial drain, divorce inevitably results in everyone involved being poorer
after the fact.

Second – and this can be a particularly hard fact to swallow
– even a good, fair, collaborative settlement will often leave you, the non-wage
earner, with less money than you need to comfortably maintain your pre-divorce
lifestyle and prepare for the future. This is especially true if children are
involved, regardless of the size of alimony and child support payments. For
example, suppose $1,200 a month is awarded as child support for one child. In some months that may be enough, but in
other months it might not be nearly enough, and you will no longer have your
spouse’s (usually larger) paycheck to turn to. Additionally, while you are
expected to find employment in an expedited time frame, some divorce
settlements don’t take into full account the cost of additional education and
training.

Third, if you have not been in charge of the finances, you
may be ill-prepared for the financial and financial-related head-of-household
responsibilities. This can include
everything from handling household and automobile maintenance to overseeing
investment portfolios and, in some cases, even paying bills and balancing
checking accounts. Additionally, you may
be ill-equipped to run down and follow through on important financial details
and legal details such as the retitling of assets, confirmation of access to
online banking and trading accounts, and the revision and redrafting of key
estate-planning documents (wills, trusts, legal and medical powers of attorney,
etc.).

Finally, in major metropolitan areas such as the Bay Area, the
financial centrality of the house cannot and should not be underestimated, especially
because it tends to warp decision-making in unsustainable ways. It’s quite typical for one spouse to have a
strong attachment to the house they have lived in and to want to hold on to it
at all costs. This is easy to
understand, especially when children are involved – children who love their
rooms, their schools, and their friends and who may have never known another
home. Undertaking a rational assessment of whether the house can be held on to
without the higher wage earner’s income in the picture – and whether it’s worth
holding on to, given the expense of maintaining it vis-à-vis all the other
financial needs that will arise – is absolutely crucial. Often the house simply can’t be held on to, and in many cases it simply shouldn’t be held on to.

Three Criteria for
Finding the Right Financial Advisor

Finding the right financial professional can itself amount
to a substantial challenge. Unfortunately, far too few financial advisors are truly
client-centric—that is, dedicated to providing their clients with the kind of
comprehensive advice and financial services that will make a real difference in
their lives.The following three criteria can help you
identify the right financial professional.

First, you want someone who is an understanding, patient, and effective teacher. You want to work with someone who is aware of
how difficult divorce is and who will help you take small, concrete steps in
the right direction as you build a new foundation. You don’t want someone who will pat you on the head and say, “It will
be OK, I’ll take care of everything from here.” Even if that were possible, it wouldn’t be
advisable, because part of what you need to do now is learn to master your finances
for the long run. Seek out a financial
professional who finds it satisfying to teach you new things and watch you rise
to the occasion to apply what you have learned.

Second, you want someone who understands and embodies the basic tenets of comprehensive wealth
management. Look for a financial
advisor who starts with long-term goals, needs, and dreams and works backward
from them. Your advisor should follow a consultative process, and he or she
should understand the value of a team approach – that is, someone who works
with a network of professionals that can help evaluate and work through everything
from mortgage and real estate needs to insurance and estate planning. Also, you want someone who takes a
conservative financial approach and follows the principles of investing your
money intelligently without promising “big returns.”

Finally, seek a financial advisor who comes well recommended by others you know and who is experienced in
working with divorce. Some things can be learned only by actually doing
them, such as how to tell a client that she/he can no longer afford to do
certain sorts of things – for example, going on a multiweek Hawaiian vacation
every summer – in a way that the client can hear without feeling utterly
defeated. A financial advisor who is a compassionate,
effective, and realistic advocate will come to know you well enough to be able
to lay things out for you in understandable terms while providing a meaningful
and ultimately encouraging perspective.

Building
a New Life for the Long Run

Ultimately, look to identify and work with a financial
advisor who understands what you need and who is dedicated to helping you achieve
it. To find this person, you will have to trust your head, your heart, and your
gut: Is this the right financial professional to help me (and my children, if
any) get on the right track financially for the long run? Is this the kind of
person who can help me separate those decisions that have to be made
immediately – even if I feel I’m not ready to make them – from those that can
be made in a few weeks, months, or years? Is this someone who will look me in the eye,
always tell me the truth, and always encourage me to learn more and become
better able to face whatever the future brings?

While the personal and emotional aspects of divorce are
typically the most difficult, the financial aspects often come in a close
second. For starters, make sure you take all of the following steps:

Recognize how universally financially difficult
divorce is for everyone involved.

Familiarize yourself with the four crucial financial
facts laid out in the second section of this article.

Commit to finding a financial advisor to work
with – you really don’t want to go it
alone – and consider the three criteria laid out above in your search.

Be prepared to do the necessary work to live the
life you want for yourself and your family for the long run.

Few things are harder than divorce, which is exactly why
it’s important to find ways to optimize your immediate and long-term financial
situations. When you find a financial advisor who understands what you’ve been
through, who follows a comprehensive process, and who will be your realistic
yet creative advocate, you will have taken one of the most important steps
toward rebuilding and re-creating your life.

One of the most delicate aspects of getting divorced is
breaking the news to your children. This
is a very important event, as it is your first opportunity to set the tone for
how your children will experience your separation. The explicit and implicit messages that you
convey at this time are critical to your children’s emotional well-being and their future relationship with both their
parents. Here is what I suggest:

Create a United Front
– Agree upon a unified “divorce story” with your
spouse and tell your children together about the decision to separate. Deliberate beforehand and choose your words carefully.
Keep the narrative as honest as possible, while at the same time protecting
them from too much detail or hurtful information. For example, “Mommy and Daddy want to stop
fighting so much” or “We think we can be happier people and better parents if
we live in separate houses” are two explanations.

Let them know attempts have been made to preserve the
relationship. Emphasize that they are
not to blame, and that they did not cause the divorce or conflict. And tell them there is nothing they can do to
prevent the divorce or to get you back together.

Reassure them that you two are still working together for their
overall well-being. Convey to them that
you are still a cohesive parenting unit. Set the stage so your children don’t start
playing one parent off the other. Don’t create a situation that will undermine
one parent’s authority and make it more difficult to co-parent in the future.

Manage Your Feelings
– It is important not to expose them to, or saddle them with, the feelings of
turmoil, anger, pain, betrayal, abandonment, and anxiety that you might be
experiencing. Explain that both parents
have made the decision to divorce. Assigning
blame to one parent will actually harm your children. While it may feel cathartic to demonize your
spouse for breaking up the family, forcing your children to judge or choose
sides takes a toll on their well-being. Allow your children to continue loving
the other parent without having to feel disloyal to either of you. Otherwise,
your children will feel they need to choose sides, thereby creating either an
uncomfortable disconnection from, or alignment with, the “bad” parent. The idea that they have “betrayed” one parent
can create feelings of anxiety. And identifying with the parent who has been labeled
as “bad” can cause self-esteem issues (e.g., “I see myself in Dad. Dad is bad. Therefore, I must be bad too.”). Reassure them that it is OK to have a
relationship with the other parent and that you both will continue to have a
close relationship with them.

Address Logistics
– A sense of continuity is important to children. Kids will usually want to know
how much of their lives will change. Take
the time to address the logistics of the separation. What will happen with school? Will they continue to be able to see their
friends? What will happen with their
room, clothes, and toys? Tell them specifically
how they will be maintaining their relationship with both parents (when will they
be with you, and when with your spouse). The younger the children, the more helpful it
will be to create prominently displayed charts so that they can set their
expectations and feel in control of the schedule.

Be Attuned to Their Feelings
– Even grown children will need you to be emotionally present to allay their
fears and empathize with their concerns. Have this be a foundational
moment where you are able to hold and validate your children’s feelings. I have
written in detail about how to elicit and respond to your children’s emotions
in my therapy blog [click here].
The crux of this skill is to listen, ask a lot of curious questions, and don’t
convince your child out of their emotions (even if they are sad and you want to
console them). While there is a place
for reassurances, also make the time to simply allow them to explore,
articulate, and process their feelings.

Follow Their Lead
– While I advise that you follow the outline above, ultimately let your
children set the pace for what they want to hear and talk about. Some will be relieved, and others will be devastated.
Some will be concerned with the logistics, and others caught up in the
emotions. Some will want to process this information at length, and others will
want to come back and address it in manageable bite-sizes. There is no wrong or right way for the
children to react. Your job is to remain
responsive to where your child is emotionally and to what
your child needs.

Keep the Conflict Away
from Your Children - Studies show that divorce, per se, is not harmful to
children’s emotional development. The
mere fact that parents live in two separate domiciles and don’t see their
children daily does not cause irrevocable harm.
Rather, it is the prevalent discord between separating parents which
exacts a toll on children and creates mental health and behavioral problems. When
there is an absence of conflict, children tend to be incredibly resilient to
the pain and challenges of divorce. So keep in mind
when breaking the news of your divorce that, while your marriage is ending,
your responsibility to collaborate with your ex-partner for your children’s well-being persists.

Divorce is a significant event in the life of your child. Whether he or she becomes permanently scarred or thrives can depend on how you and your partner manage conflict and create a cooperative parenting environment. One book that I highly recommend to parents committed to protecting their children's emotional well-being during this difficult transition is titled "Cooperative Parenting and Divorce: Shielding Your Child from Conflict -- A Parent Guide to Effective Co-Parenting" by Susan Boyan and Ann Termini. I am excerpting from their book (below) some helpful guidelines (written in the child's voice) on how to avoid putting your son or daughter in an uncomfortable situation while you negotiate joint custody and living arrangements.

Do not talk badly about my other
parent. (This make me feel torn apart!
It also makes me feel

bad about myself!)

Do not talk about my other parent’s
friends or relatives. (Let me
care for someone even if

you don’t.)

Do not talk about the divorce or other
grown-up stuff. (This
makes me feel sick. Please

leave me out of it!)

Do not talk about money or child
support. (This makes me feel guilty or
like I’m a possession

instead of your kid.)

Do not make me feel bad when I enjoy my
time with my other parent. (This
makes me afraid

to tell you things.)

Do not block my visits or prevent me
from speaking to my other parent on the

phone. (This makes me very upset.)

Do not interrupt my time with my other
parent by calling too much or by planning

my activities during our time together.

Do not argue in front of me or on the
phone when I can hear you! (This
just turns my

stomach inside out.)

Do not ask me to spy for you when I am
at my other parent’s home. (This
makes me feel

disloyal and dishonest.)

Do not ask me to keep secrets from my
other parent. (Secrets
make me feel anxious.)

Do not ask me questions about my other
parent’s life or about our time together. (This

makes me feel uncomfortable. So just let me tell you.)

Do not give me verbal messages to
deliver to my other parent. (I end up feeling anxious

about their reaction. So please just call them, leave them a message
at work or put a note in the

mail.)

Do not send written messages with me or
place them in my bag. (This also
makes me

uncomfortable.)

Do not blame my other parent for the
divorce or for things that go wrong in your

life. (This really feels terrible! I end up wanting
to defend them from your attack.

Sometimes it makes me feel sorry for you and that makes me want to
protect you. I
just

want to be a kid, so please, please…stop putting me into the middle!)

Do not treat me like an adult; it
causes way too much stress for me. (Please find a

friend or a therapist to talk to.)

Do not ignore my other parent or sit on
opposite sides of the room during my

school or sports activities. (This makes me very sad and embarrassed.
Please act like

parents and be friendly, even if it is just for me.)

Do let me take items to my other home
as long as I can carry them back and forth.

(Otherwise it feels like you are treating me
as a possession.)

Do not use guilt to pressure me to love
you more and do not ask me where I want to live.

Do realize that I have two homes, not
just one. (It doesn’t matter how much
time I spend there.)

Do let me love both of you and see each
of you as much as possible! Be flexible even when

I remember a case I worked on a few years ago at a big San Francisco law firm
where our client was caught up in litigation over an easement across her
property. When our client initially visited
the property before purchase, she saw her neighbor walking across her
driveway. She asked the real estate
agent to get that neighbor’s signature acknowledging no right to an easement
across the property (which the neighbor had enjoyed for years with the previous
owner). The neighbor signed the letter
and the client purchased the house. After moving in, our client physically
blocked off her neighbor’s access to the driveway with a very large tool shed.
Enraged and insulted, the neighbor sued for right to an easement. They spent years and hundreds of thousands of
dollars in litigation. At no point in
the dispute did they speak to one another face-to-face.

Let’s be honest – if we tried really hard, could we come up
with a more dysfunctional way to communicate amongst ourselves than via
motions, discovery requests, and the occasional outraged, attorney-to-attorney
letter?

It is ironic. Clients
come to us with a problem. Technically, at the center of the maelstrom is a
legal issue. But swirling around that point of law is a storm of emotions –
anger, frustration, disappointment, anxiety, etc. And even when it is about money, it is not
just about money. Money is highly symbolic. It represents security, prestige,
respect, acknowledgment of harm done, and the desire to be made whole.

What got me excited about mediation was the possibility of
fundamentally changing the way aggrieved parties seek damages. Instead of running from conflict, or hiring
someone to wage our battles for us, we can find a safe space to re-engage, seek
understanding, find power, and earn respect.
Instead of duking it out through discovery and motions, we can discuss
the problem in more commonsensical and personal notions of what it means to be
harmed. Instead of assigning just a
dollar value to our harm, we can allow parties to define and experience deeper,
and perhaps emotional, components to their restitution.

This vision seemed to be reinforced by my law school courses
and subsequent CLE trainings for budding mediators, which all seemed to teach
the same understanding-based approach, namely, that the mediator should use an
open session to facilitate direct, continual communication between the parties
with the goal of unearthing issues, interests and emotions. The idea is that by
addressing the parties' frustration, anger and pain, the mediator allows for
catharsis and a communicative transformation that paves the way toward a
creative and viable solution. Rarely have I seen that approach used in practice.

For example, I participated as an advocate at a JAMS
mediation where the issue was a commercial lease dispute between a
trust-landlord and a vineyard-tenant. As is the norm, after a perfunctory open
session where the lawyers stated their positions, the mediator/retired judge
put the parties in two separate rooms and ferried back and forth, evaluating
the strengths and weaknesses of the cases and soliciting settlement proposals.
A couple of times, my client said to the mediator: “I was really insulted by
the letter the tenant’s lawyer sent me accusing me of being grossly unfair. I have
had a long history with this tenant where I have tried to be accommodating, and
it hurt my feelings.” The mediator never
invited the other party in to process those emotions or discuss repairing the
relationship. Moreover, when I cornered the
mediator in the hallway and pointed out the utility of doing so, he looked at
me with an attentive but blank stare. We
didn’t settle. [To his credit, he did
say to me afterwards: “I would really like to get together some time and talk
about this whole ‘processing of emotions’ thing.”] I wanted to refer him to Gary
Friedman, a well-respected mediation trainer in Marin. Gary encourages parties
to speak about difficult emotions that have been part of the original conflict (and
subsequent litigation process). Speaking about difficult emotions gives both
parties a fuller understanding of how the conflict evolved, allows for a more
meaningful dialogue about what is important to them going forward, and gives
them a formative experience that they can carry over into life.

I recently mediated a family law matter in which divorced
parents returned to me after the father stopped paying child expenses (in clear
breach of the marital settlement agreement I had mediated a year earlier). Following the parties lead, we spent the
first hour and a half processing lingering resentments from the marriage and
dissatisfaction with current parenting roles. The father felt that, during the
marriage, he wasn’t valued as a partner but only as a financial provider. These feelings of exclusion and lack of
appreciation around his role as a parent were surfacing once again in their
post-divorce relationship. During the mediation, his ex-wife articulated her
perceived sense of abandonment by him after their daughter was born. Her feelings that she was not getting enough
physical and emotional support from him in caring for their daughter led to
resentment and distance. He, in turn,
described how, during that first year of their daughter’s life, he was
struggling to balance his economic and professional responsibilities and his
need to spend time with both his new family and a son from a previous marriage.
He felt that she did not appreciate his commitment and efforts to do the right
thing by everyone and, instead, got angry at him and pushed him away. And now, as the co-parent without primary
custody, he was feeling excluded once again in important decisions related to
their daughter.

The majority of this session was structured to enhance
understanding and gain clarity. We did not problem solve around the issues they
raised, but rather focused on increasing empathy. And only toward the very end of our session did we turn to finances. After five minutes of hearing the mother’s
explanations about the reason for the increase in their daughter’s expenses, the
father said: “OK. I have heard enough. I get it now.” He cut her a check and walked
out the door. He has not missed a support payment since.

Obviously, family law is more prone to emotionality than
civil cases. But I would posit that every case has a significant, if not
critical, emotional component – and one whose resolution is crucial to the
overall settlement of the case. For example, the easement case cited above was
about interpersonal, not street, access.
In practical terms, not having an easement added one minute to the
neighbor’s walk to the street. But symbolically, the tool shed embodied the
message that “You are cut off!” from
good neighborly relations like she had with the previous owner. It was, therefore, a deep insult and
constituted a fight against the owner’s social message that “We will not be
connected.”

And the landlord in the commercial lease dispute felt that
her moral character had been unjustly impugned. She could not contemplate a continuing
business relationship with a tenant who viewed her in such a negative light.
She needed not only a lease agreement that was financially advantageous, but
the resolution of a slight that was detrimental to her self-image.

Even the sophisticated business client wants to resolve
issues on a deeper, more fundamental level than just the financial outcome. And I do not think it is presumptuous for
mediators to facilitate such an experience.
But I would posit that lawyers (particularly litigators) are not trained
to delve into emotions and are not practiced in holding difficult, if
respectful, conversations. And things
don’t suddenly shift when we become mediators.

Mediation can be a challenging and anxiety-provoking
endeavor. We all want to feel competent
in our trade, so we fall back on what we know -- evaluation and traditional
settlement-type negotiation. Asking
mediators to contain difficult conversations in an open session, or to delve
into emotional aspects, when that is not their strong suit, is a lot to
ask. Particularly when counsel for the
parties are also leery of those conversations and are pushing the mediator to
evaluate their case and facilitate
financial offers in a caucus dynamic.

When done well, the process of mediation, not just the financial outcome, makes the client whole. Through understanding-based mediation, anger can subside, relationships can be repaired or closure achieved, and clients can move on. Intelligent
minds can disagree about what is appropriate, or perhaps feasible, during
mediation and how our clients can best be served. But let’s at least not allow
our limitations to define our aspirations.